War For the Hell of It: A Fighter Pilot's View of Vietnam

by Ed Cobleigh

  Being a USAF fighter Wing Commander is a unique job, maybe the most unusual in our military's history. The Old Man is a full colonel. In the US Army, colonels command brigades of about 2,400 troops. In the US Navy, a captain (the naval equivalent of a colonel) is in charge of an aircraft carrier battle group or a flotilla of destroyers. Those other American armed services require their senior officers to command, period. An army colonel doesn't lead bayonet charges, his troopers do. A navy captain doesn't steer the ship; a lowly seaman does that. In the United States Air Force, the Wing Commander is expected to fly the same fighter jet on the same missions, to run the same risks, and to fight as hard as the lowest-ranking officer in his unit.

  Maybe the best analogy to this modern requirement references olden times when the Scottish chieftain was expected to command the clan in battle as well as swing a claymore sword himself. The Old Man flies the same type jet as I do, goes to the same targets, takes the same risks, and is expected to achieve the same results, if not better. This is equivalent to the risk of an army colonel taking his turn walking point on jungle patrols, or of a US Navy captain personally driving a submarine, manning the dive planes and helm all the while peering out the periscope.

  I have served under Wing Commanders who didn't fly and wouldn't fight. They only took the easy missions, the milk runs. They still had to fly the jet, but they made sure the missions they assigned themselves to were easy and relatively safe. We despised these frauds as incompetent commanders at best and at worst, cowards. But, no one questions an US Army colonel's bravery if he doesn't go out on night jungle patrols.

  Not only does the Wing Commander have to perform individually as well as the greenest pilot; he has to lead the strike force at the same time. This means he has to be able to fly his jet, set up the switches, navigate, dive bomb, and do all those difficult things by instinct. All his conscious thoughts will be focused on leading the extended formation and on commanding the complex, fast-paced action.

  Just turning a formation of this size is difficult. If the leader turns too sharply, the planes on the inside of the turn radius will slow down too much and the ones on the outside will be forced to use extra fuel to keep up. The leader also has to make tactical decisions on which men's lives depend. It is a big job and to do it well takes unshakable confidence, instant decision making capability, the utmost in skill, and practice. Most of us in the wing believe we have the first three qualities in abundance; all we need is the last.

  The Old Man is leading this huge flight today but the strike force could have been led by anyone who is just as capable. In the USAF the best leader gets to lead at times, regardless of rank. As a junior captain, I have led twelve-ship formations into North Vietnam. Rank has no place in aerial combat. I have had full colonels fly on my wing and in my backseat. They did as they were told and went where I led them. I have heard of a first lieutenant who lead F-105 strike missions. That is impressive. Naturally, the higher-ranking Air Force pilots tend to be the best due to greater experience, but it doesn't have to be that way; talent also matters.

  The tradition-bound and overly rank-conscious US Navy can have two leaders in each flight; the tactical leader who flies the lead aircraft and the military leader who is the highest-ranking member of the flight. The military leader could in theory be in the backseat of the fourth airplane. One guy makes tactical decisions and another guy makes military decisions, all at the same time. How that works is beyond me.

  What is in front of me is the border of North Vietnam. As the four Phantoms of Satan Flight cross the arbitrary geographic line, I reach down without looking and flip the missile arm switch up to "arm." The radar-guided Sparrows are tuned and ready, each heat-seeking Sidewinder's aural growl in my earphones has been judged to be sufficiently aggressive. The missiles are hot and so am I, at least mentally. I am incredibly stoked; my adrenaline dose is approaching toxic levels.

  I wonder if three of the six Earp brothers and Doc Holliday felt this way in 1881 when they stepped onto the dusty main street of Tombstone, Arizona on their way to the OK Corral? Did they flip off the leather safety straps holding their Colt revolvers down in their holsters with the same studied determination that I toggled the missile arm switch on? Did Wyatt Earp nervously loosen his gun in his holster the same way that I adjusted the brightness of my gun sight? Was Doc's double-barreled shotgun as carefully prepared as my Sidewinders? Did the four lawmen have dry mouths the way I do, or it is the pure oxygen I am breathing through my mask?

  Satan Lead has pushed the airspeed up to 500 knots and we are weaving back and forth behind the strike force's twelve jets. The enemy MiG aircraft have guns and perhaps heat-seeking missiles that can only be used from behind the intended target. If an attack comes, it will be from behind. That cone-shaped zone of moving airspace where we want to be in relation to the strike force, to head off the attack or to absorb the first punch and then engage the MiGs.

  Now that we are over North Vietnam, Satan Flight's formation is edgy with aircraft jockeying around, visually displaying the nervousness of their pilots. All the aircraft in any formation are constantly in motion with respect to each other. What looks from the ground like one welded together entity is really a mix of never-ending movement. At an air show, the USAF Thunderbirds appear to be in perfect formation at all times. However, they too are continually making corrections. Their jets move in and out, up and down, forward and back unceasingly. The Thunderbirds' relative movement is measured in inches. In normal peacetime formations, the jets move in feet. A combat formation in fluid four changes by hundreds of feet. The object is not to look good from the ground but to be ready to fight.

  I am sweating bullets, flying formation on Satan Lead, looking all around for bogeys (unidentified aircraft), scanning above and below the horizon for the Bad Guys, while keeping track of the aerial positions of Satan One, Two, and Four. The control stick stirs, the throttles move up and back, the jet responds accordingly.

  In addition to keeping my eyes on my leader, Satan Lead, I also constantly check the position of Satan Four, a.k.a. Hostile Man. His job is to watch the airspace behind my jet for enemy fighters. Hostile Man is supposed to keep me from getting shot down while I am shooting down the Bad Guys in front of me. I sure hope he succeeds. I am trying hard to follow one of the basic instructions in air combat: keeping my head on a swivel. I take a look at the aerial position of Satan Lead; then I take a swift glance to my right, locating Satan Four, then scan the hazy horizon.

  I have to believe the Earps and Doc also stole sideways glances at each other as they strode four abreast up that desert street into the history books.

  I am definitely in the mental state I call the "zone." When I am in the zone, my perception of time both speeds up and slows down simultaneously. Actions that would take minutes can be done in seconds; seconds-long tasks are completed in fractions of seconds. I am flying my jet, operating its systems, doing the routine tasks of aviation without conscious effort. It feels as if my central nervous system is plugged directly into the Phantom's flight controls. In normal time, if I want to climb or turn, I manipulate the stick, rudder, and throttle to accomplish the desired maneuver. In the zone, I need only to think about where the jet and I need to be and we go there. My gloved hands on the throttles and stick need no commands; my brain's inputs go straight to the engines and control surfaces. The jet and I are one living organism with a single purpose, to fly, to fight, and to win.

  While time is speeding up in the physical world, it is slowing down in the mental realm when I am in the zone. Relieved of the requirement to think about flying the jet, my mind is free to contemplate the tactical situation at its leisure. I am mentally processing information about the spatial relationships between all the friendly aircraft, our location, the fuel state, and where we are in the world. I am planning actions based on when and where I think the MiGs will appear. I need to be ready for anything and I have the mental time to prepare for everything I can think of.


  This is the scenario with all its alternatives that I ran and re-ran in my head last night when I was supposed to be sleeping. The night before a big mission such as today's is a waste of time for sleep. I laid awake for hours visualizing the mission and every conceivable option and preparing for every eventuality, I hope.

  I can only prepare for what I can imagine and I can anticipate only those situations that I can conceive. Unfortunately, I can't clearly visualize a dogfight with a MiG because I have never even seen one and I have never fought in training with any aircraft that performs anything remotely like a MiG. In fact, in my years of training, in the constant practicing of my craft, I have only flown against other F-4s. I am very good at defeating poorly flown F-4s; I've done it frequently. If the North Vietnamese Air Force would only fly Phantoms I would know just what to do to defeat them.

  For some reason unknown to anyone below the rank of general, we are not allowed to practice dogfighting with any type aircraft other than our own. Combat training with other flavors of jets is strictly forbidden. The outlawed concept is called "dissimilar air combat maneuvering." Only the USAF would give a bureaucratic label to a proscribed action. The officially stated reason is that training with dissimilar aircraft is unsafe. Why it is unsafe has never been fully explained to anyone. I guess it is safer to learn how to fight MiGs by fighting MiGs to the death than it is to learn when the stakes are far lower. I believe when you can't figure out why something apparently illogical is the way it is, follow the money. That is probably the real reason behind the prohibition of dissimilar air combat. When F-4s fight other F-4s in training, both sides of the engagement get trained, a double dip in the training pool. If F-4s were to fly against F-5s, which the USAF doesn't use in combat, only half the cost of the flight is applicable for the war. Twice as many softies need to be generated and paid for. Evidently, the cost of aircraft shot down due to ineffective pilot training, not to mention men's lives lost, is acceptable. On-the-job training is way cheaper than quality education, unless you are the one paying for the lack of training with your life.

  All this complaining would be moot if the MiGs were similar in performance to my Phantom, but the two aircraft are wildly dissimilar. The Phantom is a large, heavy jet that accelerates well, goes really fast, and depends on good long-range missiles. It does not turn tightly, particularly at low speeds. At 420 knots and above, it handles well. Below that airspeed, it can be a handful to fly. Only a few Phantoms have internal guns for close-in dogfighting.

  The MiGs, on the other hand, are anti-Phantoms. They are lighter, smaller, slower, and they turn extremely tightly. They handle well at low speeds, less well at higher velocities. They have short-range missiles and guns, lots of guns. At least this is what I understand from reading the classified "Secret" books about the adversaries trying to kill me.

  Taking the long view, this mismatch of hardware is not unusual for the United States. Our P-47 Thunderbolts and P-38 Lightnings of WWII were less maneuverable than their German opponents, the FW-190 and Me-109 fighters. It wasn't until we introduced the P-51 Mustang midway through the war that we turned the tide. But by then, most of the good German jocks were dead. Our agile Mustangs cleaned up against the inexperienced schoolboys flying for the Luftwaffe late in the European conflict.

  In the Pacific, the Japanese Zeros flew rings, literally, around our P-40 Warhawks and F4F Wildcats early in the war. Only when we introduced the F4U Corsair, the P-51, and the F6F Hellcat and when we learned how to not bet the other man's tricks that we started to win.

  The F-86 Sabres of the USAF and the MiG-15s of North Korea were fairly evenly matched, but the superior training and experience, gained the hard way in WWII, of our guys allowed us to beat them like a drum. The seven-to-one kill ratio that we boasted of in Korea shows what good training deployed against an inept opponent can produce, even if the respective hardware is comparable. However, superior training and experience is not evident in our flight today. We have practiced some air combat, mostly in the States, and I know all of the set-piece moves. I know that when your opponent does this, you do that. When he commits thus, you counter with your own move. I have never tried any of this with a MiG-type opponent. The differences in characteristics between our Phantoms and their MiGs are as if they will try to play racquetball while we prefer tennis.

  Air combat training in the western United States is done over and in Death Valley, California. The gods of war must be splitting their togas with laughter. Whatever deadly game we are playing, it is apt to be a quick one. The average MiG engagement in this war lasts forty-five seconds. Forty-five seconds to determine who lives and who dies. At the end of those forty-five seconds, one guy will go home a hero and one or two will float down in bloody little pieces from the sky. I don't know what happens in North Vietnam, but I suspect their dynamic is the same as ours. In the USAF, killing a MiG marks you for recognition the rest of your career. Everyone knows who the MiG killers are and how many MiGs they bested in aerial duels. Some guys sew a little red star for each MiG kill on the sleeve of their flight suits or paint a bigger star on their helmets, but most do not. Did Wyatt Earp notch the walnut handle of his Colt peacemaker? I bet he did.

  My squadron commander is one of those well-known guys. He learned his craft on P-47s at the end of WWII and perfected it in Korea, earning the honorary title of "Ace" by downing five MiGs over North Korea. Besides P-47 and F-86, he flew the F-100 Super Sabre and F-105 Thunderchief before strapping on the F-4. If there is any guy in this war that knows what he is doing, it is the Boss. I am trying very hard to keep his plane in sight.

  Regardless of the actions of the other members of Satan Flight, aerial combat always comes down to one versus one. Can I in my jet defeat the other guy in his? Sadly, the training we have done over Death Valley has been unrealistic in the extreme. Early in our training cycle, we usually started each practice session with our F-4 opponent in sight and on parallel paths. Then we progressed to meeting our pretend adversaries head-on. It was a little like being a medieval knight. You shouldered your lance, slammed your visor down, and entered the lists in, say, Crouton, France. Without the invisible lists in the air to keep the contestants on parallel paths, will we know what to do against a bandit (confirmed enemy aircraft) that appears unexpectedly in some other part of the sky?

  The scripted scenarios we practiced in the States provided cheap and safe training, but did nothing to prepare us for the swirling real world of air combat. Eighty percent of the guys who are shot down never even see the Bad Guys who shoot them down. This is another reason I'm keeping my head on a swivel. Or course, I will gleefully shoot down any MiG whose pilot doesn't see me. Instead of using the analogy of a face-off with outlaws on the main street of Tombstone, maybe I should be thinking about shooting a guy in the back in the Crystal Palace Saloon.

  We are approaching the target area and so far no MiGs have been sighted. The navigators in the backseats of the Phantoms are devoting half their time to their radarscopes, but have not been able to illuminate a single bogey with their searching electronic beams.

  At least there have been no SAMs sighted either. The Wild Weasels are doing their job well. It is one thing to take on a living, thinking human pilot flying a MiG aircraft, but quite another to try to avoid a SAM. SAMs are mindless robots the size of telephone poles. There is no glory, only terror, in outwitting an automatic missile guidance computer which is answering the commands of an operator safely located on the ground. SAMs are also not intimidated. If you can get another pilot to believe that he is at a disadvantage by your display of aggressive actions, you are halfway to winning the engagement. Staring down a guy in the street before you draw your gun works. Likewise, pointing the nose of your jet at a bandit gets his attention. The only thing you can do with a SAM is to dodge it.

  In the Middle Ages, knights found no honor in warring against the vassals who were under the rule of a rival king. Honor came from defeating other knights, however inept. SAMs, like varlets, onl
y obey their master's bidding. There is no honor in dodging SAMs, only fear, and where is the honor in that?

  So far everything has gone smoothly. The strike formation is coherent, our MiG CAP flight is where we should be, and the Wild Weasels have swept the area around the target. We are ready to rain death and destruction on the unsuspecting truck parking lot. There appears to be one small glitch. Someone forgot to brief the weatherman on our plan. As far as I can see, there is nothing but a flat, solid deck of low white clouds far beneath us. North Vietnam is socked in with low-lying monsoon rain clouds.

  The monsoon in Southeast Asia is very predictable; you can forecast the weather with an almanac. The mountain spine running the length of the peninsula interrupts the prevailing wind patterns and splits the monsoon. It rains steadily for four months on each side of the mountains, but at different times. When the clouds dump on one side, the other side is clear. That is why we had gorgeous weather for our takeoff, facilitating the join up of sixteen jets in gin-clear air. It wouldn't have taken a genius to predict this low deck of clouds, but the mission was probably planned too far in advance and no one thought to check the Old Rice Farmer's Almanac.

  So now, what do we do? There are no MiGs to fight, no SAMs to dodge, and no targets to hit. The ground crews back at the base are really going to be pissed. The mission order arrived on base around 8 p.m. last night and was classified "Secret" as usual. However, word gets around. The ground crews, the ordnance troops, and the flight operations types always know when there is a big mission going and they dig it. They love to believe that they, and we, are winning the war. Nothing enhances morale like preparing for a major strike on the north.

  The enlisted guys normally work in two shifts, twelve hours on and twelve hours off, six days a week. When the aircraft began to be loaded for today's strike shortly after midnight last night, both shifts showed up for work. The guys scheduled to be on duty on the nighttime flight line were there as well as the guys who had just worked twelve hours in the hot, humid Thai sunlight. Confusion reigned for a time until the Chief of Maintenance, a full colonel, laid down the law. He decreed that only the guys actually on duty could work. The others could only help, if asked. Those heroes are going to be really disappointed if we bring all these bombs and missiles back home.